The birth of the smartphone has sparked an addiction among many people, and the average smartphone user clicks, taps or swipes on screen more than 2,600 times a day.

The heaviest users touch their device more than 5,400 times every 24 hours, however, an ex-Google employee has revealed a simple trick that could curb the habit.

By changing the settings on your device, you can get rid of all the vibrant colour, and only let your phone display a boring scale of grey.

By setting the screen of your handset to "grayscale", users might not be so compelled to check their device - this is because certain colors used by apps, like red and bright blue, subconsciously make us excited to reach for our phones.

Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google who is now speaking out against the tech giants of the world, shared the tip.

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Harris, who explains that he was once a phone addict himself, claims he beat the habit by switching his colorful phone display to grayscale, as the dark shades made checking Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and other social media sites less appealing.

With a background in psychology, he understood that certain apps could 'trigger a whole set of sensations and thoughts,' he told The Atlantic.

Pulling inspiration from a Google experiment that curbed employees M&M snacking in the office by 'moving the candy from clear to opaque containers', Harris aimed to make his phone look minimalist.